Wood Stove is scaring me to death, put me at ease...Please!

[AlaskaCub]

Clean it out every spring and I'm sure you'll be fine.

Do you get smoke in the room when you open the door on your woodstove? I'd think having 3-90's would put so much restriction on your flue that you'd get a lot of smoke in your house each time you open the door. Really bad air in your home could be bad for your health too. I had 2 vertical 90's on my woodstove in my last house so I could use a masonary chimney and if I opened the door at any speed except super-slow I'd get smoke spilling into the room. I never liked that, and I'm sure it added to a lot of bad air in the house.

As far as chimney fires, as noted I think you'll find it to be a issue of home owners who never clean their pipe. At the end of the year, clean it yourself and I think you'll see its a very small about of build up.

Also as noted, adding 45° offsets would add less restriction than your's 90's.

I dont have any smoke coming into the room when I open the door or draft issues, I did have a catastrophe on start up one day as I have an HRV system in my home and it was on when I was trying to light the stove, combatting a negative draft is a little hard with an HRV on and a house sealed extremely tight. Once I figured out to turn the HRV off when using the stove and cracking a door on start up I have no issues with smoke spilling back in, the positive draft is very strong. I will look into the 45's as opposed to the 90's hadn't thought of that. Thanks

 

[jtp10181]

If your worried about creosote in your elbows you could turn those 90 degree elbows into 45 degrees and get rid of that horizotal run. The more vertical the better.

That's what I was thinking, use some 45 elbows to offset at an angle.

Also was wondering why you didn't just go straight up through the ceiling and roof.

 

[AlaskaCub]

I have ridiculously high scissor trusses and it was too hard to do the work with the temps I had when I installed it. Woulda had to crawl into the attic vents and creep across 2 ft of spray in insulation for 30ft or so in 5 degree temps, it was just too much and after seeing a friends through the wall install it looked like an easier maintenance and install procedure. I have great draft, I just need to be proactive at cleaning the elbows inside throughout winter I guess.

 

[Ken45]

I have a question about clearances. Where we would LIKE to install our new stove, there is a fake wood beam on the ceiling about 4" away. Obviously that is too close even for double wall connector pipe (right?)

Is there any way to shield the wood beam, or is it possible to bring the actual chimney pipe down past there? I understand that chimney pipe only has to be 2" away from combustibles.

Our attic is wierd, especially where we want to put the stove!

Ken

 

[AlaskaCub]

Most Double wall Metalbestos pipe has a minimum clearance of 2" from combustibles, which tells me that if you have 4" of clearance you are fine.

 

[begreen]

Ken which pipe are you asking about? There are two types of double-wall pipe. The shiny exterior insulated double wall pipe is class A pipe. That has a minimum clearance of 2". The black, interior doublewall that connects the stove to the class A pipe has a minimum clearance to combustibles of 6".

 

[Ken45]

Ken which pipe are you asking about? There are two types of double-wall pipe. The shiny exterior insulated double wall pipe is class A pipe. That has a minimum clearance of 2". The black, interior doublewall that connects the stove to the class A pipe has a minimum clearance to combustibles of 6".

I guess I was asking if the class A pipe can be extended below the ceiling.

Our stove manual shows a minumum of 14.5" (from the centerline) clearance for the interior doublewall connector (PE Summit).

I'm confused.

Ken

 

[begreen]

Yes, it should. Usually this is inside of the ceiling support box.

 

[DriftWood]

And with months of sub zero temps with I believe the coldest we saw was -51 with a couple weeks.

The cold weather you have months of sub zero temps with -51 is a real problem with that much double wall pipe out on that cold air. It will soot up / fill with creosote big time and fast inside the exposed above the roof pipe and at the elbow on the out side. And a lot of snow can make the hole thing come down in a sluff.

The fix is to build a chase around all the outside parts. This could be insulated to help keep the pipe hot. as long as you have the required clearances to every ting inside the chase, After you build the chase build a cricket to divert rain and falling snow around the chase.

Keeping the pipe inside the house clean will be not problem but when the north wind is holing and the nights are to long and way to cold you can not be on the roof sweeping out the exposed pipe.

Seriously , enclose the all outside pipe inside a well made insulated box called a chimney chase with a inverted V shaped cricket built next to it. A hot chimney is your friend, just plan to keep it hot.

 

[North of 60]

@ -52c I will get ice build up like this. Thats it I have 8ft of exposed chimney. I clean it once a year with the latest stove. The other was every two months. :coolmad: BURN DRY WOOD thats the key. If you purchase a stove with secondary burn non cat than make sure your getting it to run that burn on every cycle. Even if you have to open a window. That was my earlier mistake.
No more fussing now. I know the EBT on the pacific energy models take care of this also but tends to run my neighbor out of the house in the shoulder seasons.

 

[AlaskaCub]

One of my friends has a similar set up to mine, through the wall install and with a much longer run of double wall up the side of his 2 story house as opposed to my single story house and his policy is to clean it once a month. He has no chase around his exposed pipe and says the creosote build up really isn't bad. I can reach my chimney top with an extension ladder right outside my back door so cleaning it really isn't a difficult task. At some point I may build a chase but I am gonna see how it does this coming winter. You are corrrect about the extreme cold cooling the gases and increasing Creosote build up though, we responded to a couple chimney fires that were a direct result of heavy creosote build up on exposed double wall runs, they need to be cleaned more often than vertical interior runs.

 

[Ken45]

I know the EBT on the pacific energy models take care of this also but tends to run my neighbor out of the house in the shoulder seasons.

Can you explain further? How does your stove affect your neighbor?

Ken

 

[KWillets]

It seems like with that much temperature difference, draft shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Highbeam]

Shiny stainless pipe on the outside with 2" clearance to combustibles = Class A

Black interior pipe with two walls and 6" clearance to combustibles = double wall.

So do folks in AK use double wall on the outside of the house? Seems the much better preference would be the highly insulated class A.

 

[North of 60]

I know the EBT on the pacific energy models take care of this also but tends to run my neighbor out of the house in the shoulder seasons.

Can you explain further? How does your stove affect your neighbor?

Ken

Ken they were talking about creosote build up. Runing dry and hot is the key in a non cat. The PE which my neighbor has,has EBT.
Quote me if Im wrong but with a secondaryburn non cat unit you have to sustain a higher stove temp witch the EBT does automatically so you dont have to fuss with it. With my stove you can maintain a clean burn 200f and up when the cat is lit. I may
be wrong but I think its much higher temps on a fresh load on non cat stoves if I was to relate to my old stove. This is where I failed and shut my old stove down to early to get the burn times up. Unless I fussed with the primary air control and watched it like a hawk.Which I didnt. Thus causing creosote. I think the EBT on PEs take care of that and start to maximize the burn once shes up to temp.
At a much higher temp though therefore cooking my neighbour out in the shoulder seasons on a full load as he is not there to add single splits. I dont think our pine we mostly burns helps this. This is only my angle and the info I share with my neighbor and some
info from the PE clan on this site. Maybe you have a PE I dont know? Does this clear the Smoke.

 

[AlaskaCub]

Shiny stainless pipe on the outside with 2" clearance to combustibles = Class A

Black interior pipe with two walls and 6" clearance to combustibles = double wall.

So do folks in AK use double wall on the outside of the house? Seems the much better preference would be the highly insulated class A.

Most people use what you call class A ( I call double wall metalbestos) for exterior runs, and single wall for interior runs.

 

[MikoDel]

Experience has shown that, as already mentioned, you won't get much accum. of creo in the stack sections nearest the stove unless you make the mistake of running really, really cool. While cleaning the upper stack will be necessary multiple times per season (I do mine around Thanksgiving, after New Years, around Valentines Day. With the wife, she looks great in a 3M mask up on the roof. Very romantic...) I find that I only have to disassemble and clean the joints nearest the heater in the off season. This summer, there was almost nothing in the 90* ell coming off the stove top. I used furnace cement to get the flue sealed up tight and so it's a hassle taking the ells apart during the heating season. But I don't have to. I use a Forever Flex chimney liner, which IMO is kind of a POS, compared to all-fuel rated, double wall stuff.

Starting fires and adding a new load of unseasoned wood is when creosote is most likely to happen. Depending on how dry your fuel is, you may want to leave the doors open for 20 min or so with a new load - helps get it going before closing and normal operation. (If you have that option with your stove.) I don't worry about overfiring, because I don't leave it unattended that way, plus as I said, the wood's not really bone dry. Also, you can tell quite easily when your draft is compromised by buildup. If I get smoke coming out of the stove when the doors are open, then I'm overdo for a cleaning. When the creo gets thick, I'll get some smoke spilling out from the top of the door opening with anything less than a really strong fire.

With the exception of outside air finding it's way back in thru a cracked open window or door, I do not smell one iota of smoke inside the house.

 

[ansehnlich1]

*WARNING*

Old thread resurrection

 

[kenny chaos]

Put the boots on and curl up inside that bear.
Who needs the stove?

 

[MikoDel]

*WARNING*

Old thread resurrection

Oh for God's sakes! I could see that coming.

Could not resist plunking my $.02 into "Wood Stove is scaring me to death.." thread.

 

[jimmiller2]

Alaskacub
Is your name due to interest in PA18? I am building a exp cub/supercub here in Tn. I too just got into wood burning and have the
same concerns about safety. I hope frequent cleaning of the pipe will prevent any problems.

JM